Orations and addresses of George William Curtis

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ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES

OF

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS

VOLUME L

^2?5f/r/?

^mRr OF THE

Copyright, 1898, by HAam & Bboihbb.

AU righf rttmted.

CONTENTS Vll

PAGB

XVII. The Higher Education of Women: An Ad-
dress delivered at the Celebration of the Comple-
tion of the Twenty-fifth Academic Year of Vassar
College, Poughkeepsie, N. Y., June 12, 1890 . . . 399

XVin. The University of the State of New York :
An Address delivered at the University Convoca-
tion in Albany, July 9, 1890 427

XIX. Education and Local Patriotism : An Address
delivered at the Kingston Academy, Kingston,
N. Y., June 25. 1891 457

INDEX 483

THE DUTY OF THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR TO
POLITICS AND THE TIMES

AN ORATION DELIVERED BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES

OF WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY, MIDDLETOWN, CONN.,

ON TUESDAY, AUGUST 5, 1 856

8 THE DUTY OF THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR

earth with beauty and feeding the race, but rather as
vegetables are thrown into a cellar, where they lie buried,
not planted, producing only some poor shoot, pallid and
useless.

In the old plays and romances we have the same
r^ picture of an absent-minded pedant, the easy prey of
x^ every knave, thej35clte-httSband of a termagantT"whbi"-^
thoughHwcouTd read a tragedy of iCschylus, could not
tie his own shoes. He belonged to the great establish-
ments as an encyclopaedia, in the same way that the
fool belonged to them as a jest-book. Scholars were
popularly ranked with women, having all their weakness
and none of their charms.

But in any just classification of human powers and pur-
^ suits the scholar is the representative of thought. De-
voted to the contemplation of truth, he is, in the State,
a public conscience by which public measures may be
tested ; the scholarly class, therefore, to which now, as
of old, the clergy belong, is the upper house in the pol-
itics of the world.

Now, there is a constant tendency in material pros-
perity, when it is the prosperity of a class and not of
the mass, to relax the severity of principle. There-
fore, we find that the era of noble thought in national
history is not usually coincident with the greatest
national prosperity. Greece was not greatest when
rumors of war had ceased. Roma wae not-mubl ini*s
parfarmTOu vulupfewouB calm ef ConBtantinopolitafl^d^
,£ay. The magnificent monotony of Bourbon tyranny
in France, and the reign of its shop-keeping king, were
not the grand eras of French history. Holland began

lO THE DUTY OF THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR

are priests of the mind, not of the body, and who are
necessarily the conservative party of intellectual and
moral freedom.

TWsls the class ^Tsdiolai's. This elevation and correc-
public sentiment is the scholar's office in the

To the right discharge of this duty all his learning
is merely subsidiary ; and if he fail to devote it to this
end, he is recreant to his duty. The end of all scholarly
attainment is to live nobly. If a man read books mere-
ly to know books, he is a tree planted only to blossom.
If he read books to apply their wisdom to life, then he
is a tree planted to bear glorious fruit. He does not
think for himself alone, nor hoard a thought as a miser
a diamond. He spends for the world. Scholarship is
not only the knowledge that makes books, but the
wisdom which inspires that knowledge. The scholar is
not necessarily a learned man, but he is a wise man.
If he be personally a recluse, his voice and influence
are never secluded. If the man be a hermit, his mind
is a citizen of the world.

If, then, such be the scholar and the scholar's office,
if he be truly the conscience of the State, the funda-
mental law of his life is liberty. At every cost, the true
scholar asserts and defends liberty of thought and
liberty of speech. Of what use to a man is a thought
that will help the world, if he cannot tell it to the
world? The Inquisition condemns Galileo's creed.
E pur si muove — still it moves — replies Galileo in his
dungeon. Tyranny poisons the cup of Socrates; he
smilingly drains it to the health of the world. The
Church, towering vast in the midst of universal super-

13 THE DUTY OF THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR

Your hearts go before my tongue to name him. Tech-
nical scholarship begins in a dictionary and ends in a
grammar. The sublime scholarship of John Milton be-
gan in literature and ended in life.

Graced with every intellectual gift, he was personally
so comely that the romantic woods of Vallambrosa are
lovelier from their association with his youthful figure
sleeping in their shade. He had all the technical ex-
cellences of the scholar. At eighteen he wrote better
Latin verses than have been written in England. He
replied to the Italian poets who complimented him
in Italian pure as their own. He was profoundly skilled
in theology, in science, and in the literature of all lan-
guages.

These were his accomplishments, but his genius was
vast and vigorous. While yet a youth he wrote those
minor poems which have the simple perfection of pro-
ductions of nature ; and in the ripeness of his wisdom
and power he turned his blind eyes to heaven, and
sang the lofty song which has given him a twin glory
with Shakespeare in English renown.

It is much for one man to have exhausted the litera-
ture of other nations and to have enriched his own.
But other men have done this in various degrees. Mil-
ton went beyond it to complete the circle of his charac-
ter as the scholar.

You know the culmination of his life. The first
scholar in England and in the world at that time ful-
filled his office. His vocation making him especially
the representative of liberty, he accepted the part to
which he was naturally called, and, turning away from

14

THE DUTY OP THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR

not fancy all the noble and generous hearts in the world
shouting through all the centuries, " Amen, amen !" ?
i Gentlemen, the scholar is the representative of thought
among men, and his duty to society is the effort to in-
troduce thought and the sense of justice into human af-
fairs. He was not made a scholar to satisfy the news-
papers or the parish beadles, but to serve God and man.
While other men pursue what is expedient and watch
with alarm the flickering of the funds, he is to pursue
the truth and watch the eternal law of justice.

But if this be true of the scholar in general, how pe-
culiarly is it true of the American scholar, who, as a
citizen of a republic, has not only an influence by his
word and example, but, by his vote, a direct agency
upon public affairs. In a republic which decides ques-
tions involving the national welfare by a majority of
voices, whoever refuses to vote is a traitor to his own
cause, whatever that cause may be ; and if any scholar
will not vote, nor have an opinion upon great public
measures because that would be to mix himself with
politics, but contents himself with vague declamation
about freedom in general, knowing that the enemies of
freedom always use its name, then that scholar is a
traitor to Liberty, and degrades his order by justifying
the reproach that the scholar is a pusillanimous trimmer.
The American scholar, gentlemen, has duties to poli-
tics in general ; and he has, consequently, duties in every
political crisis in his country. What his duties are in
this crisis of our national affairs I shall now tell you as
plainly as I can. The times are grave, and they demand
sober speech. To us young men the future of this

1 6 THE DUTY OF THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR

and fierce; brute force supplants moral principle; free-
dom of speech is suppressed, because the natural speech
of man condemns slavery, a sensitive vanity is called
honor, and cowardly swagger, chivalry; respect for
woman is destroyed by universal licentiousness; lazy
indifference is called gallantry, and an impudent famil-
iarity, cordiality. To supply by a travesty of courage
the want of manly honor, men deliberately shoot those
who expose their falsehoods. Therefore they go armed
with knives and pistols, for it is a cardinal article of a
code of false honor that it is possible for a bully to insult
a gentleman. Founded upon crime — for by no other
word can man-stealing be characterized — the prosperity
of such a people is at the mercy of an indignant justice.
Hence a slave society has the characteristics of wander-
ing tribes, which rob, and live, therefore, insecure in the
shadow of impending vengeance. There is nothing ad-
mirable in such a society but what its spirit condemns ,
there is nothing permanent in it but decay. Against nat-
ure, against reason, against the human instinct, against
the divine law, the institution of human slavery is the
most dreadful that philosophy contemplates or the im-
agination conceives. Certainly, some individual slave-
holders are good men, but the mass of men are never
better than their institutions; and certainly some slaves
are better fed and lodged than some free laborers, but
so are many horses better fed and lodged than some
free laborers. Is, therefore, a laborer to abdicate his
manhood and become a horse ? And certainly, as it ex-
ists, God may, in a certain sense, be said to permit it ;
but in the same way God permitted the slaughter of the

THE DUTY OF THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR 1 7

innocents in Judea, and he permitted the awful railway
slaughter, not a month ago, near Philadelphia. Do you
mean that as comfort for the mothers of Judea and the
mothers of Pennsylvania ?

History confirms what philosophy teaches. The East-
em nations and the Spanish colonies, Rome in her de-
cline and the Southern States of America, display a so-
ciety of which the spirit is similar, however much the
phenomena may differ. Moral self-respect is the first
condition of national life, as labor is the first condition
of national prosperity ; but the laborer cannot have
moral respect unless he be free.

The true national policy, therefore, is that which en-
nobles and dignifies labor. Cincinnatus upon his farm
is the ideal of the citizen. But slavery disgraces labor
by making the laborer a brute, while it makes the slave-
holder the immediate rival of the free laborer in all the
markets of the world. Hence, Tiberius Gracchus, one
of the greatest of Roman citizens, early saw that, in a
State where an oligarchy at the same time monopolized
and di^raced labor, there must necessarily be a vast
demoralized population who would demand support of
the State and be ready for the service of the dema-
/gogue, who is always the tyrant. Gracchus was killed,
but the issue proved the prophet. The canker which
Rome cherished in her bosom ate out the heart of
Rome, and the empire whose splendor flashed over the
whole world fell like a blighted tree. Not until slavery
had barbarized the great mass of the Romans did Rome
fall a prey to the barbarians from abroad.

Gentlemen, it is a disgrace for all of us that in this
I.— 2

1 8 THE DUTY OF THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR

country and in this year of our history the occasion
should require me to state such principles and facts
as these. History seems to be an endless iteration.
But it is not so. Do not lose heart. It only seems
so because there has been but one great cause in
human affairs — the cause of liberty. In a thousand
forms, under a thousand names, the old contest has
been waged. It divided the politics of Greece and
Rome, of England, France, America, into two parties ;
so that the history of liberty is the history of the
world.

As American citizens, we are called upon to fight
that battle by resisting the extension of the institution
which I have described. The advocacy of the area of
its extension is not a whim of the slave-power, but is
based upon the absolute necessities of the system. An
institution which is mentally and morally pernicious
cannot be economically advantageous. To suppose so
is to accuse God of putting a premium upon sin.
The system of slave -labor, by demoralizing the popu-
lation and exhausting the soil, absolutely demands ex-
pansion.

Of this economical fact there can be no doubt. The
State of Virginia, for instance, has a finer climate, richer
and cheaper soils, with less expensive means of devel-
oping their wealth, than Pennsylvania, or New York, or
Massachusetts. At the Revolution Virg^inia had twice
the population of Pennsylvania, much more disposable
capital, and the best facilities for external commerce
and internal communication. In 1850, the cash value
of farms in Pennsylvania was $25 an acre; in Virginia,

24 THE DUTY OF THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR

spread through your widely - extended domain? Its
present threatening aspect, and the violence of its sup-
porters, so far from inducing me to yield to its progress,
prompt me to resist its march. Now is the time ! The
extension of the evil must now be prevented, or the
opportunity will be lost forever. ... If the Western
country cannot be settled without slavery, gladly would
I prevent its settlement till time shall be no more.**

Mr. Cobb, of Georgia, fixing his eyes upon Tallmadge,
said, as the slave section has always said, that if the
Northern members persisted, the Union would be dis-
solved.

Mr. Tallmadge — let us remember his name, young
Americans, with those of our great men — Mr. Tallmadge
said: "Language of this sort has no effect upon me.
My purpose is fixed* It is interwoven with my exist-
ence. Its durability is limited with my life. It is a
great and glorious cause, setting bounds to slavery the
most cruel and debasing the world has ever witnessed.
It is the cause of the freedom of man."

It was the most famous debate in our history. Rufus
King frankly declared that it was a question of slave or
free policy in the national government. Every argu-
ment that has been used in the discussion by the slaves
power during the last two years was then presented, and
completely refuted by the representatives of freedom.
The legislatures of the States especially instructed their
representatives how to vote. The country shook as in
the toils of an earthquake. The vote was taken, and
the slave -power conquered. The slave delegations
voted in a body for the bill, and Mr. Pinckney wrote

28 THE DUTY OF THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR

were the interest of trade and the slave system that
the subject was not allowed to be discussed. The pro-
fessed abolitionists were reviled as fanatical traitors,
and the entire practical silence of the North was justi-
fied by saying tHat the discussion of the subject had
only increased the difficulty by inflaming the slave-
power ; as if, because a burglar may shoot you if you
oppose him, therefore burglary must not be mentioned.
The question was considered so difficult that it was
never asked. We were sinking deeper and deeper in
the slough, and, because it was so very hard to get out,
we must not even make the effort to escape suffocation.
Good manners forbade all allusion to slavery. All
places which Northerners and Southerners frequented
— Newport, Saratoga, the mountains, among which Lib-
erty was bom, and the sea, which is the very symbol of
Freedom, across which she has fled a hundred times
to found her immortal empire — ^were silent over the
spreading pestilence. The pulpit held its tongue ; the
press, which in a free land should be the alarm bell of
liberty, was muffled. If a pian from the free States died
for liberty, as Lovejoy died at Alton, he was called a
fanatical fool, and Freedom had no other epitaph for her
martyr. Other countries to which we superciliously as-
serted our superiority asked, contemptuously, " What is
this Republic which makes cattle of men, and whips
women when they grieve that their children are sold
away from them?" And we replied, "You don't un-
derstand the peculiarities of the situation.'* We tried
to believe that the slave -power regretted slavery, be-
cause it said, with every new link of the chain it forged,

^ 32 THE DUTY OF THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR

You know that the President of the United States en-
deavored to compel that submission by means of the
national army. It was the final triumph of the slave-
power. Its success could not be greater. The Presi-
dent of the United States orders the army of the
United States to force slavery upon a free territory,
and while I speak to you the crime goes on. But also

1

while I speak to you twenty millions of a moral people,
politically dedicated to liberty, are asking themselves
whether their government shall be administered solely
in the interest of three hundred and fifty thousand
slave-holders.

At last we are overtaken by a sense of the grandeur
of the issue before us ; but so long did God delay the
dawning that good men despaired of day.

Do you ask me our duty as scholars? Gentlemen,
'thought, which the scholar represents, is life and liberty.
There is no intellectual or moral life without liberty.
Therefore, as a man must breathe and see before he can
study, the scholar must have liberty, first of all ; and as
the American scholar is a man and has a voice in his
own government, so his interest in political affairs must
precede all others. He must build his house before he
can live in it. He must be a perpetual inspiration of
freedom in politics. He must recognize that the intelli-
gent exercise of political rights which is a privilege in a
monarchy, is a duty in a republic. If it clash with his
ease, his retirement, his taste, his study, let it clash, but
let him do his duty. The course of events is incessant,
^nd when the good deed is slighted, the bad deed is
done.

II

PATRIOTISM

AN ORATION DELIVERED BEFORE THE GRADUATING CLASS AT
UNION COLLEGE, SCHENECTADY, N. Y., JULY 20, 1857

The following oration, first delivered before the graduating
class at Union College, Schenectady, N. Y., on July 20th, 1857,
was repeated, on July 29th, before the Literary Societies of Dart-
mouth College, Hanover, N. H. ; on July 31st, at the Normal
School in Westfield, Mass. ; and on September 3d, at Brown Uni-
versity, Providence, R. I. It was published in the New York
Tribune, September 4th, and in the Anti^Slavery Standard, Sep-
tember I2th.

The year which had passed since the delivery of the preceding
oration had been marked by the election of Mr. Buchanan, the
proslavery candidate, to the Presidency, and by the decision of
the Dred Scott case in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Chief Justice Taney had read his opinion in the case on March
6th, two days after the inauguration of Mr. Buchanan — ^an opin-
ion in which it was declared that nq^;roes were not citizens un-
der the Constitution, and that Congress had no right to prohibit
slavery in the Territories. The infamous Fugitive - slave Law
was in operation. The power of slavery had never been so
firmly established or so threatening. The governor of South
Carolina had recommended, in a message to the Legislature, the
reopening of the slave-trade.

But the antislavery sentiment of the North was growing in
intensity in proportion to the aggressive action and apparent
success of the upholders of slavery. And in confirming this
sentiment Mr. Curtis was engaged.

40 PATRIOTISM

The flower in your hand fades while you look at it ;
the dream that allures you glimmers and is gone. But
both flower and dream, like youth itself, are buds and
prophecies. For where, without the perfumed bloom-
ing of the spring orchards all over the hills and among
the valleys of New England and New York, would the
happy harvests of New York and New England be ? and
where, without the dreams of the young men lighting the
future with human possibility, would be the deeds of the
old men dignifying the past with human achievement ?

Gentlemen, how deeply does it become us to trust in
the promise of youth and to believe in its fulfilment —
us, who are not only young ourselves, but living with
the youth of the youngest nation in history.

I congratulate you that you are young; I congratu-
late you that you are Americans.

Life is beginning for us ; but the life of every nation,
as of every individual, is a battle, and the victory is to
those who fight with faith and undespairing devotion.
Knowing that nothing is worth fighting for at all unless
God reigns, let us believe at least as much in the good-
ness of God as we do in the dexterity of the Devil.
And, viewing this prodigious spectacle of our country
— this hope of humanity — this young America, our
America, taking the sun full in the front, and making
for the future as boldly and blithely as the young David
for Goliath — let us believe in our own hopes with all our
hearts, and out of that faith shall spring the fact that
David, and not Goliath, is to win the day.

Only by the religious resolution of every successive
generation of young Americans shall the great ideas out

46 PATRIOTISM

loved as with human affection, of whom poets sing, for
whom heroes die, is still unseen and her voice unheard.
But in some happy hour of bivouac the musing soldier
hears the hum of cities and inland mills, sees golden
harvests waving out of sight, sees men and women
walking and working, parents and children of freemen,
and bending over all the benediction of the summer
sky ; and the musing soldier of that great army in the
harvest and the murmur knows that he sees and hears,
as they can only be seen and heard, the face and the
voice of the mistress he loves and worships.

If such is Patriotism in general, what is it in particu-
lar? How can you, as educated young Americans, best
serve the great cause of human development to which
all nationalities are subservient ?

In the life of Columbus we read that, after being
many weeks at sea, the great navigator was at open de-
fiance with his crew ; but one day, after the vesper hymn
to the Virgrin had been sung, Columbus pointed out to
his crew the goodness of God in wafting them over a
tranquil ocean and holding out to them promise of land.
" As the evening darkened," says the charming chron-
icler, who, himself the patriarch of American literature,
has written with touching fidelity the lives of the two
most famous men associated with the history of Amer-
ica— Columbus, who discovered the theatre of the histor-
ical experiment, and Washington, who secured its honest
trial, and has thereby linked to those great names an-
other which I do not need to mention, for your hearts
go before my lips to name Washington Irving — " as the
evening darkened, Columbus took his station on the top

50 PATRIOTISM

midst of the horrors of the early West Indian struggle
for gold; and that he lived to deplore bitterly the
course he had advised, having learned, as three cen-
turies have continued to learn, that to do a great and
evident wrong for the sake of a possible good is only
to make sure of committing the sin and to leave the
good worse than undone. And I am sure no candid
young mind can hear without incredulity and shame
that the repented error of Las Casas three hundred
years ago is the last desperate defence of a system in
the land where he planted it which the holy indigna-
tion of humanity is slowly, but surely, withering. If
we gfrant with reverence that God brings good out of
evil, shall we therefore, with Jesuitical sophistry, con-
sent to do the evil ?

It seemed, certainly, at the beginning of the seven-
teenth century, as if the discovery of the new continent
had only made the world richer to make it worse. The
new settlements merely repeated in more hideous forms
the vices of the old European civilization. But the
kind climate, the quick soil, and the rare metals, by at-
tracting adventurers, had done their work. The lost
Atlantis had been found again. Sebastian Cabot, Ca-
bral, Cortereal, Verrazzani, Cartier, in many latitudes,
under every auspice, had touched the remote and fabu-
lous shores. Among the sunset clouds a new continent
lay fallow for the future — waiting to be possessed and
inhabited by any people who had sufficient cause and
heart and hope enough to subdue it.

The movement for whose ultimate purposes the
scene was thus preparing still went on in Europe.

54 PATRIOTISM

citizens, with certain obligations to the laW. If, there-
fore, the law of the land, enacted by a majority of the
people, declare that you must pay a heavy tax, that a
railroad may pierce your garden, that a duty may be
levied upon the goods you import, however injurious
to you the effect may be you can have no right to re-
sist forcibly, because the consequences of forcible re-
sistance would be universal confusiori and injury, and
because, if it be found to be a grievance by the ma-
jority, they will presently put it right, and meanwhile
your pecuniary loss is your .share of the compromise for
the general security. These are laws that concern us
only as citizens in our relations to the State. In them-
selves they have no moral character or importance.

But if the law of the land, enacted by the majority,
declares that you must murder your child under two
years of age, or prostitute your daughter, or deny a
cup of water to the thirsty, or return to savage Indians
an innocent captive flying for his life whom they had
stolen from his country and enslaved for their own
gain, under the name of civilizing him, you have no
right to obey, because such laws nullify themselves, be-
ing repulsive to the holiest human instincts, and obedi-
ence would produce a more disastrous public demorali-
zation than any possible revolution could breed. " To
authorize an untruth by a toleration of State," said the
Cobbler of Agawam, one of the stern old Puritans, two
hundred and seventeen years ago, " is to build a sconce
against the walls of heaven, to batter^ God out of his
chair." Such laws God and man require of you to
disobey, for upon a people who, under any pretence.

J

56 PATRIOTISM

that are passing, and because there is now a deadly
debate in our minds whether men may not do wrong
for the sake of some apparent advantage.

Will you ask where we should be if every citizen is to
decide for himself whether he is to obey the law ? On
the other hand, I ask you where we shall be if he is
not ? If he consent to act against his moral judgment
for a year, for two years, for six months, for a week, do
you not see that his entire moral nature is corrupted;
that such a man upon the very same ground would denj'
his father, would sell his sister, if the law required ; and
that to believe the interests of mankind committed to a
nation of such men is to accuse not only the goodness
but the wisdom of God ?

Besides, whenever in a country like ours a law which
violates the moral sense chances to exist, it is the will
of the majority, and they will punish the disobedient.
To that punishment the offender will willingly submit,
and thereby show homage to the principles of law. But
when good men are sent to jail for refusing to do
wrong, if there be any public conscience there will soon
be a change. James II. sent the bishops to the Tower;
but to put them in the Tower was not to put them in
the wrong, and after a little while the people of Eng-
land drove James II. across the sea.

Nor need you fear that men will plead their con-
science falsely to avoid obedience to the law. Because
the penalty is always proportioned and always exacted,
and if a man says, to escape payment of a tax, that his
moral sense will not allow him to pay, his tax will be
doubled or trebled in the shape of penalty.

Ill

THE PRESENT ASPECT OF THE SLAVERY

QUESTION

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT PLYMOUTH CHURCH, BROOKLYN,

N. Y., OCTOBER 1 8, 1859.

68 THE PRESENT ASPECT OF THE SLAVERY QUESTION

Mr. Douglas might as justly quote the fact that there
were slaves in New York up to 1827 as proof that the
public opinion of the State sanctioned slavery, as to try
to make an argument of the fact that there were slave
laws upon the statute-books of the original States. He
forgets that there was not in all the colonial legislation
of America one single law which recognized the right-
fulness of slavery in the abstract; that in 1774 Virginia
stigmatized the slave-trade as "wicked, cruel, and un-
natural"; that in the same year Congress protested
against it " under the sacred ties of virtue, honor, and
love of country"; that in 1775 the same Congress de-
nied that God intended one man to own another as a
slave ; that the new Discipline of the Methodist Church,
in 1784, and the Pastoral Letter of the Presbyterian
Church, in 1788, denounced slavery; that abolition so-
cieties existed in slave States, and that it was hardly
the interest even of the cotton-growing States, where
it took a slave a day to clean a pound of cotton, to up-
hold the system. Mr. Douglas incessantly forgets to tell
us that Jefferson, in his address to the Virginia Legis-
lature of 1774, says that "the abolition of domestic
slavery is the greatest object of desire in these colo-
nies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant
state " ; and while he constantly remembers to remind
us that the Jeffersonian prohibition of slavery in the ter-
ritories was lost in 1784, he forgets to add that it was
lost, not by a majority of votes — for there were sixteen
in its favor to seven against it — but because the sixteen
votes did not represent two thirds of the States ; and
he also incessantly forgets to tell us that this Jeflferso-

82 THE PRESENT ASPECT OF THE SLAVERY QUESTION

Puritan persecution in Scotland, the undaunted voices
of the Covenanters were heard singing the solemn songs
of God that echoed and re-echoed from peak to peak of
the barren mountains, until the great dumb wilderness
was vocal with praise — so in little towns and great
cities were heard the uncompromising voices of these
men sternly intoning the majestic words of the Golden
Rule and the Declaration of Independence, which ech-
oed from solitary heart to heart until the whole land
rang with the litany of liberty.

But still the great public opinion of the free States
was unmoved. It cried angrily : " You're only making
matters worse. It's very hard, but what can we do?
It's none of our business. It's none of our business."

But when 1850 came, and theory was found to be fact,
when the man who was angrily crying, " It's none of
my business, what have I to do with slavery ?" suddenly
felt the quivering, panting fugitive clinging to his knees
— a wretched, forlorn, outcast, hunted man, guilty of no
crime but color, and begging the succor that no honest
man would refuse to a cur cowering on his threshold —
then, as he stood aghast and heard Slavery thundering
at his door, " I am the law. Give me my prey ! Give
me my prey!" he felt God knocking at his heart,
'' Whoso doeth it unto the least of these my little ones,
doeth it unto me."

Up to this time, as I believe, slavery had been let
alone^ as it claimed to be, in good faith. Up to this
time it is clear enough in our history that there was no
general perception of the terrible truth that slavery was
a system aggressive in its very nature, and necessarily

IV

THE AMERICAN DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY

AN ORATION DELIVERED BEFORE THE «. B. K. SOCIETY OF
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, JULY 1 7, 1 862.

/

The following oration, first delivered in the summer of 1862
before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University, was
repeated forty times in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode
Island, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania, during the
ensuing year.

The summer of 1862 was perhaps the darkest period of the
war. In September, President Lincoln issued his preliminary
Proclamation of Emancipation ; on the first of January, 1863, this
was followed by the final Proclamation.

In the directing and confirming of public sentiment and opin-
ion this Address of Mr. Curtis was of great service.

Il6 THk AMERICAN DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY

suspected satire, the popular instinct dubbed it Know-
Nothing, while this most peculiarly un-American of
our political parties completed its comedy by soberly
claiming to be distinctively American. But it is a hap-
py fact for any man who believes that political liberty
is based upon the rights of all men and not upon the
whims of some; that its career was the shortest of any
party in our history.

But our late history shows us a far more dangerous,
because more subtle and specious, denial of the doc-
trine of liberty — a denial which one of the nimblest and
tfioit adroit of our modem politicians thought to be the
surest trap to catch the Presidency. Mr. Douglas, who
had a frenzy- to be President, who had watched very
closely^the current of political sentiment in the coun-
try^ was persuaded that the long habit of indifference
to human rights had deadened the sense of justice in
the national mind. He was not a thoughtful scholar,
and therefore did not know from the experience of all
history that there is no law more absolute than the
eternal restoration of the moral balance of the world
by the vindication of justice. Nor had his wide and
familiar intercourse with the most demoralized and de-
graded political epoch in our history supplied that nee*
essary knowledge. He was the representative politi-
cian of an era which had apparently lost all faith in
ideas. His favorite dogma was the most satirical in-
sult to the American people, for it implied that their
ignorant enthusiasm would honor Aim most who most
cunningly denied the most cardinal principle of their
national life. Apparently his dogma was the simple

THE AMERICAN DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY XI7

assertion of the right of the majority to govern, and
nothing could be fairer thaii that. This is a democratic
country, he said ; the majority mlesl Unhappily, we
quarrel about slavery in the territories. Very well ; let
us settle the question by applynig the fundamental rule.
Let the majority decide. Let the majority of people in
the territory say whether they will have slaves. What
can be fairer? cried Mr. Douglas, leering at the country.
What can be fairer? echoed a thousand caucuses. The
manner was blandishing. The sophism was sparkling./
It was a champagne that bubbled and whirled in the
popular brain, until many a wise man feared that the
conscience and common-sense of the nation were wholly
drugged. It was the doctrine of the sheerest moral indif-
ference. " Liberty, human rights, they are only iiames,"
he said, and with a frightful composure and utter moral
confusion he added, '' I take the part of the white man
against the black, and of the black man against the
alligator." I am neither for slavery nor liberty, he said.
I don't care which. But the nation, after all, was not
dnigged ; it did care. Its interest, if not its conscience,
was alarmed. His jovial reference of the rights of hu-
man nature to the whim or hatred or supposed interest
of a majority was overborne by the refusal to leave
them even to a majority. The two great parties of the
country rallied around the essential principle involved.
It was at once a question of liberty and of despotism.
The parties were in earnest. Yet he could not be in
earnest, for he was only playing for the Presidency.
" * The mills of God ' ! — there are no mills of God," he
smiled and said; and instantly he was caught up and

\

POLITICAL INFIDELITY

A LECTURE

MARCH, 1864

The following lecture was delivered more than fifty times in
the course of 1864 and 1865, in different States, from Maine to
Maryland.

143 POLITICAL INFIDELITY

hand the serpent of rebellion and with the other the
hydra of foreign hate dead beside her cradle. To the
American Republic belongs the national domain. To
the American heart belong^ the national principles of
Liberty and Union. To the American flag belongs
the national victory which shall secure those principles
from sea to sea.

VI

THE GOOD FIGHT
1865-6

This lecture was written in the autumn of 1865, and delivered
in many places during that season and the following winter.

The Civil War had ended. Andrew Johnson was President.
Slavery had been abolished by the Constitutional Amendment,
and the process of ** Reconstruction " was actively proceeding.

THE GOOD FIGHT 1 77

** Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching.
Cheer up, comrades — they will come !"

For our America shall be the Sinai of the nations,
and from the terrible thunders and lightnings of its
great struggle shall proceed the divine law of liberty
that shall subdue and harmonize the world.
I.— 12

VII

THE RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE

A SPEECH llADE IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OP
THE STATE OF NEW YORK, JULY 19^ 1867

During the summer of 1867 a Constitutional Convention for
the State of New York was held at Albany. Mr. Curtis was a
member of it from Richmond County. He took an active part
in its deliberations and debates.

VIII
FAIR PLAY FOR WOMEN

AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE AMERICAN WOMAN-SUFFRAGE ASSO-
CIATION, AT STEINWAY HALL, NEW YORK, MAY 12. 1870

IX

THE PURITAN PRINCIPLE: LIBERTY UNDER

THE LAW

A SPEECH MADE AT THE DINNER OF THE NEW ENGLAND
SOCIETY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, DEC. 22, 1 876

doubtedly he did value them, for he was not a fool. But he
valued them for the use which he could make of them for the
welfare of the State, not for themselves or for his own immediate
reputation/'

The speech is reprinted from the pamphlet report of the occa-
sion issued by the Society. The indications of applause have
been allowed to stand, as showing the spirit and impression of
the moment.

XI

THE PUBLIC DUTY OF EDUCATED MEN

AN ORATION DELIVERED AT THE COHHENCEHENT OF UNION

COLLEGE, JUNE 2J, iZjJ

THE PUBLIC DUTY OF EDUCATED MEN 285

of a patriotism that girds the commonwealth with the
resistless splendor of the moral law — the invulnerable
panoply of States, the celestial secret of a g^eat nation
and a happy people.

XII
NEW YORK AND ITS PRESS

AN ADDRESS MADE AT THE ANNUAL CONVENTION OF

THE NEW YORK STATE PRESS ASSOCIATION, AT

UTICA, N. Y., JUNE 8, 1881

298 NEW YORK AND ITS PRESS

bellsy the joyous feasting, and the fervidly grateful ad-
dress of the city, saluted not the orator only, but Amer-
ican liberty, which had caught a fresh breath of life from
his burning lips.

This is the event in the history of New York which
this meeting, and every recurring meeting of this associ-
ation, ought to commemorate. In New York the press
was liberated. In New York the cardinal principle
that the truth is not a libel was affirmed. In the Zen-
ger trial in New York, as Gouverneur Morris said, shone
the rosy dawn of that liberty which afterwards revolu-
tionized America. And what a tremendous power was
thus emancipated! for with a free press popular gov-
ernment began. In a broad sense, a free press is the
greatest of all powers of civilization, because the high-
est, the most beautiful, the most beneficent inspira^
tions of human genius in every branch of literature, are
made permanently and universally accessible only by
the press. In vain for us the prophets had spoken, the
apostles taught ; in vain the poets had sung, the philos-
ophers had explored, the inventors experimented, and
the historians written; for us Homer and Dante and
Shakespeare had been dumb ; Plutarch and Bacon, Thu-
cydides and Tacitus, Gibbon and Grote, Bryant and
Bancroft, Motley and Emerson and Longfellow had
been practically and popularly unknown, except for
the mighty and familiar magic of the press.

But ours is a more limited signification of the word.
It is not as the universal disseminator of creative litera-
ture that we celebrate the press, but as the quick ear
and loud tongue of the world's life. Its mere swift-

XIII

THE LEADERSHIP OF EDUCATED MEN

«

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE ALUMNI OF BROWN
UNIVERSITY, AT PROVIDENCE, R. I., JUNE 20, 1 882

322 THE LEADERSHIP OF EDUCATED MEN

ship lost control, and Marat became the genius and
the type of the Revolution. Ireland also bears witness.
As its apostle and tutelaty saint was a scholar, so
its long despair of justice has found its voice and
its hand among educated Irishmen, Swift and Moly-
neux and Flood and Grattan and O'Connell, Duffy,
and the young enthusiasts around Thomas Davis
who sang of an Erin that never was and dreamed of
an Ireland that cannot be, were men of the colleges
and the schools, whose long persistence of tongue
and pen fostered the life of their country and gained
for her all that she has won. For modem Italy, let
Silvio Pellico and Foresti and Maroncelli answer. It
was Italian education which Austria sought to smother,
and it was not less Cavour than Garibaldi who gave
constitutional liberty to Italy. When Germany sank
at Jena under the heel of Napoleon, and Stein — ^whom
Napoleon hated, but could not appall — asked if national
life survived, the answer rang from the universities, and
from them modem Germany came forth. With pro-
phetic impulse Theodore Koerner called his poems " The
Lyre and the Sword," for, like the love which changed
the sea-nymph into the harp, the fervent patriotism of
the educated youth of Germany turned the poet's lyre
into the soldier's victorious sword. In the splendor of
our American day let us remember and honor our breth-
ren, first in every council, dead upon every field of free-
dom from the Volga to the Rhine, from John o'Groats
to the Adriatic, who have steadily drawn Europe from
out the night of despotism, and have vindicated for the
educated class the leadership of modern civilization.

330 THE LEADERSHIP OF EDUCATED MEN

scholar of the Senate of the United States who held
highest in his undaunted hands the flag of humanity
and his country. While others bowed and bent and
broke around him, the form of Charles Sumner towered
erect. Commerce and trade, the mob of the clubs and
of the street, hissed and sneered at him as a pedantic
dreamer and fanatic. No kind of insult and defiance
was spared. But the unbending scholar revealed to the
haughty foe an antagonist as proud and resolute as it-
self. He supplied what the hour demanded, a sublime
faith in liberty, the uncompromising spirit which inter-
preted the Constitution and the statutes for freedom and
not for slavery. The fiery agitation became bloody
battle. Still he strode on before. " I am only six weeks
behind you," said Abraham Lincoln, the Western fron-
tiersman, to the New England scholar ; and along the
path that the scholar blazed in the wild wilderness of
civil war, the path of emancipation and the constitu-
tional equality of all citizens, his country followed fast
to union, peace, and prosperity. The public service of
this scholar was not less than that of any of his prede-
cessors or any of his contemporaries. Criticise him as
you will, mark every shadow you can find,

" Though round his base the rolling clouds are spread.
Eternal sunshine settles on his head."

It would indeed be a sorrowful confession for this
day and this assembly, to own that experience proves
the air of the college to be suffocating to generous
thought and heroic action. Here it would be especially
unjust, for what son of this college does not proudly

1

THE LEADERSHIP OF EDUCATED MEN 33 1

remember that when, in the Revolution, Rhode Island
was the seat of war, the college boys left the recitation-
room for the field, and the college became a soldiers'
barrack and hospital ? And what son of any college in
the land, what educated American, does not recall with
grateful pride that legion of college youth in our own
day — " Integer vitae scelerisque purus " — ^who were not
cowards or sybarites because they were scholars, but
whose consecration to the cause of country and man
vindicated the words of John Milton, "A complete and
generous education is that which fits a man to perform
justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both
private and public, of peace and war?" That is the
praise of the American scholar. The glory of this day
and of this Commencement season is that the pioneers,
the courageous and independent leaders in public af-
fairs, the great apostles of religious and civil liberty,
have been, in large part, educated men, sustained by
the sympathy of the educated class.

But this is not true of the past alone. As educated
America was the constructive power, so it is still th^
true conservative force of the Republic. It is decried
as priggish and theoretical. But so Richard Henry Lee
condemned the Constitution as the work of visionaries.
They are always called visionaries who hold that moral-
ity is stronger than a majority. Goldwin Smith says
that Cobden felt that at heart England was a gentleman
and not a bully. So thinks the educated American of
his own country. He has faith enough in the people to
appeal to them against themselves, for he knows that
the cardinal condition of popular government is the

XIV

THE SPIRIT AND INFLUENCE OF THE HIGHER

EDUCATION

AN ADDRESS IN COMMEMORATION OF THE CENTENNIAL AN-
NIVERSARY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE UNI-
VERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, AND
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE BOARD
OF REGENTS, DELIVERED AT
ALBANY, N. Y., JULY

8, 1884

The Centennial Anniversary of the establishment of the Uni-
versity of the State of New York was celebrated at the annual
meeting of the Board of R^;ents of the University, at Albany,
July 8, 1884.

Mr. Curtis had been a member of the Board since 1864.

XV

THE PURITAN SPIRIT

AN ORATION DELIVERED AT THE UNVEILING OF THE PILGRIM

STATUE BY THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY, IN THE

CITY OF NEW YORK, AT CENTRAL

PARK, JUNE 6, 1885

THE PURITAN SPIRIT 377

idea ; a fanatic like Columbus, sure of a western pas-
sage to India over a mysterious ocean which no mari-
ner had ever sailed ; a fanatic like Galileo, who marked
the courses of the stars and saw, despite the jargon of
authority, that still the earth moved; a fanatic like
Joseph Warren, whom the glory of patriotism trans-
figured upon Bunker Hill. This was the fanatic who
read the Bible to the English people and quickened
English life with the fire of the primeval faith; who
' smote the Spaniard, and swept the pirates from the
sea, and rode with Cromwell and his Ironsides, praising
God ; who to the utmost shores of the Mediterranean,
and in the shuddering valleys of Piedmont, to every
religious oppressor and foe of England, made the name
of England terrible. This was the fanatic, soft as sun-
shine in the young Milton, blasting in Cromwell as the
thunder-bolt, in Endicott austere as Calvin, in Roger
Williams benign as Melanchthon, in John Robinson
foreseeing more truth to break forth from God's word.
In all history do you see a nobler figure ? Forth from
the morning of Greece come, Leonidas, with your
bravest of the brave; in the rapt city plead, Demos-
thenes, your country's cause; pluck, Gracchus, from
aristocratic Rome its crown ; speak, Cicero, your magic
word ; lift, Cato, your admonishing hand ; and you,
patriots of modem Europe, be all gratefully remem-
bered ; but where in the earlier ages, in the later day,
in lands remote or near, shall we find loftier self-sac-
rifice, more unstained devotion to worthier ends, issu-
ing in happier results to the highest interests of man,
than in the English Puritan ?

THE PURITAN SPIRIT 38 1

colony in Holland before they were a colony in Amer-
ica, were compelled to self-government, to a common
sympathy and support, to bearing one another's bur-
dens ; and so, by the stem experience of actual life,
they were trained in the virtues most essential for the
fulfilment of their august but unimagined destiny. The
patriots of the Continental Congress seemed to Lord
Chatham imposing beyond the law-givers of Greece
and Rome. The Constitutional Convention a hundred
years ago was an assembly so wise that its accomplished
work is reverently received by continuous generations,
as the children of Israel received the tables of the law
which Moses brought down from the Holy Mount.
Happy, thrice happy the people which to such scenes
in their history can add the simple grandeur of the
spectacle in the cabin of the Mayflower^ the Puritans
signing the compact which was but the formal expres-
sion of the government that voluntarily they had estab-
lished— the scene which makes Plymouth Rock a step-
ping-stone from the freedom of the solitary Alps and
the disputed liberties of England to the fully devel-
oped constitutional and well-ordered republic of the
United States.

The history of colonial New England and of New
England in the Union is the story of the influence of
the Puritan in America. It is a theme too alluring
to neglect, too vast to be attempted now. But even
in passing I must not urge a claim too broad. Even
in the pride of this hour, and with the consent of your
approving conviction and sympathy, I must not pro-
claim that the republic, like a conquering goddess.

The so-called annual "banquet" of the New York Chamber
of Commerce on November 15, 1887, was distinguished by the
presence of the Rt. Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, M.P., Special
Commissioner of the British Government on the Joint Commis-
sion for the Settlement of the Fisheries Difficulties.

After Mr. Chamberlain and others had spoken, Mr. Curtis was
called on to speak in response to the toast, "The English-
speaking race: The founders of commonwealths, pioneers of
progress; stubborn defenders of liberty; may they ever work
together for the world's welfare."

4X2 THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEK

These were undoubtedly frontier outposts of chang-
ing public sentiment regarding the education of women.
But meanwhile, in 1836, the Legislature of Georgia char-
tered a college for women at Macon, which for some
mysterious reason was called the Georgia Female Col-
lege. Women are undoubtedly females, but no more
so than men are males. The word college does not
admit the distinction of sex, and there is no more pro-
priety in calling Vassar a female college than Yale or
Columbia a male college. Upon a most valuable and
excellent institution in the city of New York there is
a sign which announces that a reading-room for males
and females is to be found within. But whether de-
signed for equine males or bovine females is not stated.
Besides the Georgia college for women there was a Wes-
leyan College, in Ohio, incorporated in 1846, and in 1848
the Mary Sharp College at Winchester, in Tennessee,
while the Elmira College, in ' New York, graduated its
first class in 1859.

These facts and dates are interesting not as incident
to any controversy of priority, but as illustrations of a
changing public sentiment. The test of civilization is
the estimate of woman. The measure of that estimate
is the degree of practical acknowledgment of her equal
liberty of choice and action with men, and nothing is
historically plainer than that the progress of moral and
political liberty since the Reformation has included a
consequent and constant movement for the abolition of
every arbitrary restraint upon the freedom of women.
It has been, indeed, very gradual. Compliment and in-
credulity have persistently bowed out justice and rea-

THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN 413

son. But as usual the exiles have steadily returned
stronger and more resolute. Their first definite de-
mand was that of education. For this they have
pleaded against tradition, prejudice, scepticism, ridi-
cule, and superstition. There has been bitter conten-
tion not only over the end, but the means. Profuse
eloquence and wit and learning have been expended
in the discussion of the comparative excellence of co-
education or separate education, of the limitations and
conditions which Nature herself has prescribed to the
range and degree of education for women, of the divine
intentions, and of the natural sphere of the sexes.

In this ardent but ludicrous debate there have been
as many theorizers as theories. The gentlemen of
Charles II.'s court thought that women were educated
enough if they could spell out the recipes of pies and
puddings, the manufacture of which nature had in*
trusted to their tender mercies. Lord Byron did not
like to see women eat, because he thought angels should
be superior to beef and beer, and it is still a very pop-
ular current belief that it is the sphere of lovely woman

To eat strawberries, sugar, and cream,
Sit on a cushion, and sew up a seam."

This debate of the sphere of the sexes as determining
the character and limits of education is very amusing.
For if the sexes have spheres, there really seems to be
no more reason to apprehend that women will desert
their sphere than men. I have not observed any gen-
eral anxiety lest men should steal away from their work-
shops and offices that they may dam the family stock-

4lS THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN

could be no doubt that such training was equally de-
sirable for women, except upon the theory which ad«
vancing civilization had steadily abjured.

Mr. Vassar's declaration twenty-five years ago is the
satisfactory evidence that public sentiment had reached
the conviction which his few and unqualified words
announce. Those words quietly set aside forever the
practice of the Boston High -School admitting girls
when boys did not want the places. They signalized
the end of the tradition which had produced the im-
mense disparity, that Sydney Smith declared admitted
of no defence, between the knowledge of men and
women. " For the last thirty years," said Mr. Vassar,
** the standard of education for the sex has been con-
stantly rising in the United States." The chief obstruc-
tion was want of ample endowment " It is my hope,"
said he, ''to be the instrument in the hand of Provi-
dence of founding an institution which shall accomplish
for young women what our colleges are accomplishing
for young men."

The movement of opinion which lifted Mr. Vassar to
his happy design had already produced, as we have
seen, seminaries and even colleges for women. But,
admirable as schools, and significant as they were of
the tendencies of thought, the adequate resource and
comprehensive scheme which surround the teacher with
all the appliances of teaching were here first fully and
properly supplied. And if now, at the end of a quarter
of a century from the opening of its doors, the founder,
as he naturally liked to be called, should visibly re-
turn, and sitting here should contemplate his work and

THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN 435

left her as a foolish goddess with chivalry and Don
Quixote ; we have left her as a toy with Chesterfield
and the club ; and in the enlightened American daugh-
ter, wife, and mother, in the free American home, we
find the fairest flower and the highest promise of
American civilization.

XVIII
THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE UNIVERSITY CONVOCATION

IN ALBANY, JULY 9, 1890

I

I

\

44^ THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

trusts, its administration may decline into a mere per-
functory observance of routine or it may produce the
highest public benefit. The choice between these al-
ternatives will depend upon the hearty co-operation
both in spirit and purpose, of the central authority and
of the widespread and independent collegiate and aca-
demic membership of the University. While the re-
gents are the trustees elected by the representatives
of the people who confer a trust, this convocation is
the representative body of the various institutions of
which the University consists. This is the congress of
higher education in New York. It should speak the
thought of New York upon this cardinal interest of a
free country, and to its deliberations the whole coun-
try should turn to ascertain whether, upon the funda-
mental questions of educational life and progress, it has
anything to learn from the Empire State, or whether
New York is imperial only in extent and population, in
natural resources and material prosperity.

The credential — I might say, in view of the ultimate
purpose of the convocation, the highest credential — of
every member is not derived from his office as a teach-
er, but from his profound conviction as a man of the
grandeur of the intellectual life. As an American cit-
izen, he comes here with no deference to any other in-
terest. The scholar bows to the superior intelligence,
if such it be, but not to the money of Croesus. Leigh
Hunt said, with fine democracy of feeling, " I thought
that my Horace and Demosthenes gave me a right to
sit at table with any man, and I think so still." If our
convictions did not assure us of the essential value of

45> THE UNITEKSITV OF THE STATK OF NSW VORC

their success, what was it ? Where do you see it now !
Surely not in their riches, but in the respect that ten
derly cherishes their memory because, knowing its ines
timable value, they gave to others the opportunity ol
education which had been denied to them. Let us
make their lofty spirit the spirit of the University. Re-
membering that the great ministry of education is not
to make the body more comfortable, but the soul liap-
pier, may the University, in all its departments and ac-
tivities, cherish and promote education, not for its lower
uses, but for its higher influences.

XIX

EDUCATION AND LOCAL PATRIOTISM

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE KINGSTON ACADEMY, KING-
STON, N. Y., JUNE 25. 1891

458 EDUCATION AND LOCAL PATRIOTISM

Puritans. It was sifted grain that made New England,
grain sifted by profound conviction, by unquailing cour-
age, by stem self-sacrifice, by heroic persistence — sifted
grain which has sprung into the most marvellous har-
vest in history.

But while every early New-Englander was but an Old-
Englander made over, the fathers of New York were of
various blood. When the convention sat here and or-
ganized the State, Jay was by descent a Frenchman,
Morris a Welshman, Livingston a Scotchman, Clinton
an Irishman, Herkimer of Oriskany a German, Hoff-
man a Swede, and, in political genius the greatest of
New-Yorkers, Alexander Hamilton, was a British West-
Indian. This diversity of national origin in the settle-
ment and leadership of New York long before the great
immigration began was in this sense fortunate that, as
its chief city and seaport was the gate through which
Europe entered America, it was not a strait gate nor
did it open upon a narrow way. The membership of the
first constitutional convention at Kingston, in which at
least six different nationalities participated, forecast the
cosmopolitan New York of to-day. But the different
public spirit of a homogeneous and a heterogeneous com-
munity, in the same country and animated by the same
general purpose, is illustrated by the fact that when
New England, by the voice of John Adams, was de-
manding independence. New York, by the lips of John
Jay, was asking for one more appeal to the king. So,
also, when the king's troops were forced out of Boston
in the first year of the war, they came to New York
and occupied it until the British standard in the city

. —J

482 EDUCATION AND LOCAL PATRIOTISM

humbly, to the fulfilment of this noblest of human as-
pirations. Our intelligence is the divine spark within
us, and the more carefully we cherish it and fan it into
flame the more certainly will the world in which we live
be enveloped in celestial light, and human life fulfil its
divine purpose.